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My new book from @CUPElementsPBC is now openly available online for the next four weeks.
The Edited Collection: Pasts, Present and Futures. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108683647
Longish thread to follow later. 1/
The Edited Collection: Pasts, Present and Futures. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108683647
Longish thread to follow later. 1/
For now, the short version: the edited collection has had a bad press, but the objections are either largely unfounded or (if real) soluble. Working in community involves both risk and trust to make a volume work, but it's an idea of community that we're in danger of losing. 2/
I look at the history of the format in the 20th century, through a series of case studies: English theology (including volumes like Soundings, and The Myth of God Incarnate); Benjamin Britten; the series of Cambridge Histories; Anglican studies; Web history. 3/
I draw out the fundamentally conversational nature of edited collections. Born from interactions among scholars, they display those conversations, with the consonance and dissonance that entails. In turn, they often become points of reference as that dialogue continues. 4/
I also look at developments in the last three decades: in academic employment and patterns of publication, research assessment, and academic publishing (technology, supply, demand, pricing). I conclude that the particular job the edited collection does still needs doing. 5/
To the objections: although there is a perception that publishers have retreated from the format, the evidence is that there has been a shifting of market share rather than a shrinkage overall. 6/
They have been suspected of incoherence as volumes — of being no more than the sum of their parts. Some are, but many amount to much more; it is not a given, and much depends on the editor(s). 7/
While edited collection chapters have in the past been less visible than journal articles, the problem is one of information systems rather than anything fundamental to the format; the situation has improved and should continue to do so. 8/
Without much more research, it is also difficult to maintain that chapters suffer any universal citation deficit when compared with articles. 9/
And though editors and publishers use a variety of different systems of quality control to the "gold standard" double-blind peer review used for journals , it is not clear that they are less robust. Again, much depends on the editors. 10/
But the prejudice against the format remains strong, not least in the UK in relation to the RAE/REF, despite all reassurances to the contrary. (See also: tenure) 11/
Despite the lack of evidence, there is a persistent mismatch between what scholars believe is in the best interest of their discipline and their own professional interest. And it is self-fulfilling — a maligned format attracts lesser work, and thus suffers. 12/
But the edited collection implies a model of scholarly community that involves mutual obligation, risk and trust. As a contributor, I accept some shaping of my work as I collaborate with an editor to make the collection more than the sum of its parts. 13/
I also have an obligation to the other contributors, to commit the time and energy to produce work of the required standard, or to withdraw in good time if I cannot. And I must trust the other contributors to do the same. 14/
Just as the editor risks his or her reputation in trusting me to contribute, so I must trust them to work to create the most coherent and impactful work that there can be, even if it involves rejecting the work of others, (including mine). 15/
But trust is in short supply in universities right now. In arguing for the need to accept a necessary but creative risk, the misalignment of scholarly & institutional interests is most obvious. If this little book does anything to correct that, it will have done its job. 16/
Some thanks: I first started thinking about the edited collection in 2013 after reading a post by @deevybee. @jfwinters, series editor, gave me the opportunity to work these ideas out in full. @martin_eve & @TimHitchcock read a draft and helped improve it a great deal. 17/
Thanks also to all those who gave up their time to be interviewed, and to the hundreds who responded to a survey, and to those who wrote to me privately.
And finally, thanks to all at CUP for such an enterprising and inventive series @CUPElementsPBC
@samartha 18/
And finally, thanks to all at CUP for such an enterprising and inventive series @CUPElementsPBC
@samartha 18/
The Edited Collection: Pasts, Present and Futures.
Free to read online for the next four weeks, and £9.99 in paperback (in two weeks)
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108683647
/ends
Free to read online for the next four weeks, and £9.99 in paperback (in two weeks)
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108683647
/ends
